


Neighbors

by Eveliiina



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Neighbors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-28 15:11:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13906677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eveliiina/pseuds/Eveliiina
Summary: "Amy stumbled over her words, tucking her hair behind her ear and looking down at the floor. Jake would have probably laughed at her awkwardness if he didn’t think that he would have acted exactly the same."Jake and Amy are neighbors and they both suck at dating.





	1. Two Dates, One Crush

**Author's Note:**

> Peraltiago is the cutest and I love putting them in AU situations.
> 
> Also, not a native English speaker here, so you can probably expect some mistakes.

Jake was an idiot. That was really nothing new, but it didn’t make him feel any less crappy. The evening had started out nice enough - he had made a reservation to a nice little Italian restaurant with a pretty blonde he had met online - it sounded great on paper. But things had gone sideways pretty fast. Because, as established, Jake was an idiot. And he had totally forgotten his dates’ name.

He had felt like such an asshole.

He knew it was something starting with a c - he was almost certain it was either Chelsea or Charlene. 

It was Katherine. 

He had kept the act up for a while - somehow managing to dodge using her name in conversation, but she had started getting suspicious and Jake was positive she was going to call him out on it sooner rather than later. So when she had excused herself to the ladies room, Jake took that opportunity to take out his phone and open up the dating app they had met on to check her name - a brilliant idea, he had thought at the time. 

But then she came back, saw her online profile on his phone, and accused him of forgetting her name and looking it up. Which, you know, was 100% the truth. And Jake certainly didn’t blame her when she told him to pay for the food and left the restaurant quicker than he could say “sorry”.

And now he was fumbling with his apartment key, already feeling the beginnings of a nasty headache, mumbling the word “idiot” under his breath. 

“Rough night?”

Jake was so startled he almost dropped his key but managed to catch it in his palm. He turned to his left and was greeted by the sight of his neighbor - Amy Santiago. She had moved into the apartment complex couple of weeks ago and mostly kept to herself. They had bumped into each other a few times in the hallway, elevator, and lobby, and brief introductions had been made. 

She was a very sensible-looking woman, almost always sporting a pantsuit or some sort of formal wear. On the rare occasions he had spotted her collecting her mail in the morning with more casual clothes, it was always jeans and a button-up shirt. Jake was sure he had never even seen her with her hair down - it was always in a tight ponytail, not a hair out of place. 

So it caught him completely off guard when he saw her now, a few feet away from him, looking like the exact opposite of what she usually looked like.

Her hair was down, falling over her shoulders and mostly covering the straps of the red, knee-length dress she was wearing. She was carrying a black jacket that was draped over her right arm and clutching a small purse in her left hand. She had on jewelry and makeup and black, strap-on heels. 

She looked beautiful. 

Not that she didn’t always - even with the pantsuits and ponytails, Jake wasn’t blind. Amy Santiago was a beautiful woman, and by the looks of it, returning home from a date, just like he was.

She was looking at him with a questioning expression, and Jake snapped out of his thoughts, remembering that she had asked him a question.

“Um, yeah, you could say that,” he rubbed his neck, trying to avoid ogling his neighbor too much.

“Bad date?” Amy asked, gesturing to his clothes, which he realized must have looked very different from the usual hoodies and jeans he always wore as well.

“Yeah,” he smiled sheepishly. “You too?” he, in turn, gestured to her. 

She sighed, leaning on her apartment door. “Yeah. Though it wasn’t that bad - the food was pretty good,” she let out a chuckle. “The guy was super boring though - wouldn’t stop talking about pilsners,” she frowned and shivered as if the very thought of her date made her shudder.

“Sounds awful,” Jake chuckled, relaxing to lean on his door as well.

“I’ve had worse,” Amy gave him a smile. “What about you?” she asked.

Jake gave a nervous chuckle. “I’m afraid I was the sole reason for my date going horribly wrong tonight,” he said, shifting from one foot to another.

Amy lifted her brow. “What did you do?” she asked.

Jake looked down. “I may or may not have forgotten her name.”

Amy gasped. “That’s awful! Poor girl,” she frowned.

Jake sighed. “I know - I’m the worst. In my defense, we met online and she had like five numbers before and after her name which is just plain confusing. Though that is a pretty weak excuse, even by my standards.”

Amy gave him a small smile. “Well, it’s not like you’re the only one who’s ever messed up on a date - I once called my friend during my date while the guy was in the bathroom to tell her that it was the single most awful date I’d ever been on and he overheard me when he came back. Safe to say, I paid that bill.” They both laughed, and Jake was glad that she didn’t seem to think his screw up was completely irredeemable.

They stood in the hallway for a few seconds, an awkward silence hanging between them.

“Well, I, uh, better go. Have to wake up early so…,” Amy stumbled over her words, tucking her hair behind her ear and looking down at the floor. Jake would have probably laughed at her awkwardness if he didn’t think that he would have acted exactly the same.

“Right. Yeah, me too,” he said, nodding and once again putting his key in the lock, opening the door at the same time that Amy fished her key out of her purse. He lingered in the doorway for a second, rubbing the back of his head. “Night,” he glanced at her but didn’t wait for an answer as he quickly dived into his apartment, shutting the door behind him a little too loudly.

Great. Now he had a crush on his neighbor.

\--

It was ridiculous, Jake decided. There was nothing special about Amy Santiago, not really. Sure, she was beautiful and kind and probably funny and intelligent and seemingly just as bad at dating as Jake was, but surely she was no different than any other woman out there.

Which is why he couldn’t for the life of him understand why he could not stop thinking about her.

It had been three days - three days since their awkward post-dates exchange outside their respective apartments, and she was still infiltrating his mind for no good reason. If he thought about her any more, he was sure it would be classified as an obsession. And Jake Peralta did not get obsessed.

If she was anyone else, he would just ask her out to at the very least get her out of his system. Which sounded bad, but that’s how he often got rid of pesky crushes he had for people he shouldn’t have pesky crushes for; that included people he literally shared a wall with.

And precisely because of that - her being his neighbor - it was different. Getting involved with your neighbor was a bad idea. He had to deal with awkward eye contact and small talk already - he didn’t want to add “ex-girlfriend” to his list of anxieties involving neighbors. Not that they would even reach the level of girlfriend-boyfriend were he to ask her out - if his current track record was of any indication, Jake wasn’t that good at dating. Or apparently at remembering the names of the people he did date.

Though that probably wouldn’t be a problem with Amy Santiago.

Fuck.

\--

Jake convinced himself that he was just wound up about his recent string of first-dates-gone-horribly-wrong, and the not-obsession with his neighbor was just the result of him being stressed out about his love life. And what better way to unwind some stress than to go out for a quick run around the block and focus his mind somewhere completely different? 

Jake could come up with about 56 ideas better than that (one of which was fishing, surprisingly) but as it turned out, he no longer had a choice.

Because of course, as fate had been so kind to him lately, he just had to run into one Amy Santiago while getting his mail at the lobby. And of course, because Jake never actually looks at what he puts on in the morning, he was clad in some disturbingly old running shoes, shorts and a t-shirt; looking like he was about to go for a run, like one of those gross, healthy people who actually cared about what they looked like. 

So Amy had made a fair assumption - asking Jake if he was going out for a run. And because Jake is Jake and Jake happens to be an awkward, bumbling idiot who couldn’t form out the words “no, I just threw something on to get the mail”, he had instead told her that yes, he was in fact about to go running. Because that is totally a thing that he does. 

And now he couldn’t back down, not when she had told him to “have a good run”, and looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to say something along the lines of “thanks, I will!” and leave the building for the run around the block he was definitely going to do.

And that is how Jake found himself outside, leaning against the wall of his apartment building, staring at the clock on his phone and waiting until an appropriate amount of time had passed for it to be believable that he had indeed used his time running, and not waiting outside like an idiot to make sure that Amy wouldn’t somehow see him coming back too quickly and realize he had lied. 

(Actually running was obviously not an option - he was certain his lungs would collapse if he even attempted it)

When he hit the twenty-minute mark, he walked back inside and scurried quickly back to his apartment to minimize the chances of bumping into her again.

Once the door was closed and he could finally breathe normally, Jake banged his head into the wall.

He was so screwed.


	2. Comfortable Silence

For the next week, Jake did everything he could to avoid seeing Amy whenever he left his apartment. It was relatively easy since she left for work before he did and usually came back later than he did. Which consequently made him wonder what she did for a living. But he wouldn’t get to know that, not anytime soon anyway, because he was making sure that there would be absolutely no interaction between them before his silly crush on her had faded.

Because that’s exactly what it was - a silly crush. No more than a tiny infatuation. A slight interest, if you will. Completely manageable, totally not a big deal at all.

So it definitely wasn’t a big deal when he did bump into her after a week, when he came back from the grocery store, carrying two full bags of what was mostly just cereal and orange soda. And it most certainly was not a big deal when he saw that Amy was apparently coming back from another date; wearing a midnight blue, strapless dress, her hair slightly curled and tossed to the side. And Jake was absolutely not thinking about how he had never wanted to disappear from sight as much as he did then - because seeing her and talking to her would definitely not be a big deal. Not at all. Which is why he simply nodded when she greeted him and power walked the steps back into his apartment - not because he knew he wouldn't be able to be in her vicinity, but because he just happened to like walking quickly.

His denial lasted all of three minutes until his brain was once again filled with images of his neighbor in her pretty blue dress.

\--

It was all becoming too much, he concluded the next day. He couldn’t live his life avoiding his neighbor and not being able to even look at her without being reduced to a bumbling mess. He had to get rid of his crush, and he had to get rid of it soon.

Que his second attempt at online dating.

\--

His second date with someone he had met online was significantly better than the first one. For starters, his date - Nina - had much fewer numbers in her username. And she was actually pretty good company. She wasn’t exactly a comedian, but she had a solid sense of humor, and she definitely wasn’t bad to look at. Not that Jake was all that superficial, but you know, it’s a bonus.

All in all, it was a good first date. A first good first date in a very long time. He drove her home and kissed her cheek and she was totally into him. 

And he didn’t let himself think too much about why he never contacted her again after their date.

\--

The next time Jake saw Amy again was when he was coming back from work and she was sitting on the floor in front of her door, leaning her head back against it, an annoyed and slightly angry look on her face.

“I lost my key,” she said, looking at Jake, who had stopped to stare at her. “I’m waiting for the maintenance guy to bring me a new one.” 

“Right,” he said, still not moving.

Once again, an awkward silence fell between them.

“Wanna come wait for him in my apartment?” Jake asked before he even realized what he was saying. But when Amy looked at him with gratitude shining in her eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.

“That would be great, actually. He said it might take a while and I’d much rather sit on an actual chair, rather than the floor,” she said, standing up and dusting off her trousers.

It was probably a bad idea to invite the object of his not-obsession into his apartment, but it wasn’t like he would suddenly pounce on her or anything - he wasn’t a creep. He was just an awkward mess and she was most likely gonna make him into an even bigger awkward mess.

But it was too late to retract his offer now that he was sitting across from her in his kitchen, drinking coffee and trying to silence his brain that was yelling for him to run away as fast as possible.

“Thanks for inviting me in. It’s much nicer here than in the hallway,” Amy said while drinking her tea. Another thing Jake had now learned about her and stashed away somewhere in his brain - Amy didn’t like coffee, but according to her, she could drink ten cups of tea in one sitting. Which, being totally honest, was something Jake wouldn’t mind witnessing.

“No problem,” he said as he rubbed his neck “Just doing what anyone else would’ve done.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Amy smiled.

Amy had a nice smile, Jake thought. It wasn’t a coy, flirty smile he was used to seeing his dates give him, and it wasn’t a forced, polite smile he regularly saw on his colleagues’ faces. It was a genuine smile, one that Jake wouldn’t mind seeing more often.

“So, what do you do for a living?” Amy asked, setting her almost empty teacup onto the table. She had attempted some form of small talk since walking into his apartment, and it was quite frankly adorable how she obviously tried her best to fill in any silences so it wouldn’t become awkward. 

“I teach music at the local high school.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “You’re a teacher?”

Jake chuckled. “Is that hard to believe?”

Amy blushed. “No, that’s not what I- you just don’t exactly… look like a teacher,” she finished, her face getting more flushed by the second. Jake decided he rather liked flushed Amy.

“I get it, don’t worry. All my friends pretty much freaked out when I told them I was gonna be a teacher - it’s not really a profession you expect the former class clown to be in,” his voice had a teasing edge to it, but he made sure to reassure Amy that he wasn’t actually offended by her remark.

“A former class clown, huh?” she smirked. “I was the polar opposite in school. A total teacher’s pet.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that vibe from the pantsuits,” Jake laughed. Amy glared at him, but he knew he wasn’t in any trouble for saying that when he saw the smile tugging at her lips.

“So what about you, then?” he asked. “What does Amy Santiago do for a living?” He cringed at the way he said her name, in a way that could be construed as flirty, but if she noticed, she didn’t show it.

“I’m a publisher. I read books for a living - it’s not as exciting as a music teacher, I’m afraid,” she gave him a half-hearted smile. 

That wouldn’t do.

“I think it’s plenty exciting,” Jake insisted, maybe a bit too enthusiastically, judging by the way she lifted her brows and looked at him with surprise in her eyes. “I mean, if that's what you love doing, I think it’s great. And for the record, I think it’s pretty dope to be able to read books for a living.”

Amy’s surprised expression soon morphed into a soft smile, as she watched Jake with what he thought looked almost like fondness. “Thank you,” she said, dropping her gaze to the teacup in front of her, but the smile never left her face.

And for the first time since they’d met, they fell into a comfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you liked the second chapter and if you did, please leave a comment!


	3. It's Mutual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're gonna get a little bit of Amy's POV at the beginning and get to see what she really thinks of Jake.

Amy Santiago was terrible at dating. Or maybe the universe was just conspiring against her - either way, every date she had been on in the past month had been either boring or set her creeper alert in motion. (Sometimes it was both)

Anyway, point being that Amy’s love life at the moment involved exactly zero percent love. Which was fine. She was totally okay with being single and free. It was fine.

(Note: it wasn’t fine)

It’s not really that Amy needed to be in a relationship; she was doing well on her own and most of the time she enjoyed being able to live in her own little world and not having to care about someone else’s life on top of her own. But she would be lying if she said that she didn’t miss the feeling of waking up next to someone in the morning and having someone she could kiss goodbye to before going to work. 

So she tried dating, but it didn’t really work out. Since moving to her new apartment, she had gone on two dates; the first guy had probably been the most boring person she had ever met and she had almost fallen asleep during his long speech about pilsners. The next date had been slightly better, but it just lacked something. There was just no spark between them.

(It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that her date wasn’t Jake Peralta)

Okay, so maybe Amy had developed a slight teensy weensy crush on one of her neighbors. 

Amy had met Jake for the first time when she had moved into the apartment complex - trying to unsuccessfully open his apartment door while juggling three grocery bags full of what was clearly junk food. She thought he looked cute - she was used to serious men in suits who preferred talking about their mortgage over anything else, so the guy wearing worn down jeans and an old hoodie with a goofy smile on his face and the awkward “welcome to the building” he threw in her way had been refreshingly different.

They’d seen each other a few times after that, exchanged names and engaged in short, polite and neighborly conversations. 

And then she had seen him coming back from a date on the same night that she was coming back from her date, and they had talked and laughed for a bit and she had been enamored with him ever since.

She had initially thought of asking him out at some point, but it became difficult when all of the sudden it felt like Jake was nowhere to be seen. Usually, she would at least catch a glimpse of him when he collected his mail at the lobby, but suddenly it seemed like Jake Peralta had disappeared. Well, not disappeared. It was obvious he still very much resided in the apartment next to her - the walls weren’t exactly thin, but sound still carried to the other side. (And after moving into her apartment, she had pretty quickly learned that Jake liked to watch super loud action movies _a lot_ )

But yeah, that had really put a damper on her plans. Until the fateful day when she lost her key.

It had been a shitty day, to begin with - she had had to do an unusual amount of rejecting various kinds of manuscripts that were sent to her office, which had always been the worst part of her job - she hated disappointing people.

And then when she finally got back from work, powered by the image of herself in a calming bubble bath, completely stress-free, she had realized that her apartment key was not in her purse anymore. Nor was it in her pockets. And it hadn’t dropped anywhere in the building on her way back. It had almost made her want to pull her hair out.

So when Jake made his appearance after ten minutes of her lounging on the floor in front of her door and making very frustrated calls concerning her situation with the key, it felt like maybe the universe was finally on her side.

She spent the next hour at his place, drinking tea and talking about nothing and everything with him. The way his eyes would light up when he talked about his job and how talented the students in his class were and how much potential they all had made her heart swell. Jake was such a genuinely nice and funny and amazing person that Amy had to wonder if she would even be worthy of being with someone like him.

She had left his apartment reluctantly, but the memory of his warm smile when saying goodbye to her at the door made up for the lack of Jake in her own apartment.

Maybe getting involved with him romantically wouldn’t work - they were neighbors after all, and even though she hadn’t really given it any thought before, dating your neighbor might not be the best idea. But they could still totally be platonic friends, right?

Right?

\--

Jake was not a morning person by any means. If there was one thing he hated about his job, it was having to wake up so early to get there. It also didn’t help that he had stayed up until one in the morning watching Die Hard and eating a bag of chips on his own. He was a teacher - nobody said anything about him being a responsible adult.

He rolled himself out of bed and threw on clothes that were mostly workplace appropriate before walking into the kitchen to make breakfast. (Aka, fruity cereal with milk)

He had tried to distract his thoughts from Amy by spending his time watching John McClane being a badass, but unsurprisingly it didn’t work. Because Amy Santiago seemed to be glued into his brain as of late.

Spending an hour with her in his apartment the other day hadn’t really helped with his plan to try to rid himself of his crush. If anything, it only made him want to spend more time with her. There had been this look in her eyes when she talked about her work; just unadulterated passion for her job when he had finally convinced her that it wasn’t boring. He could get high on that look.

Okay, that may have sounded a bit creepy. But he did love seeing the passion burning in her eyes when she talked about all the amazing stories she had read and how she loved telling the authors sending their stuff to her that she really liked them. Amy was clearly a people pleaser and loved making others happy, but in a way that didn’t make her a pushover or someone who was easy to manipulate into doing what you wanted - she had a strong mind. And maybe that was a lot of not-necessarily-factual-information gathered from just talking to her for an hour, but Jake had always been good at reading people and Amy was like an open book.

And as cheesy as it sounded (and it really did), he couldn’t wait to read more.

\--

Rushing out of his apartment at seven o’clock and getting settled in the teacher’s lounge at 7:30 had been the longest period of time when Jake hadn’t thought about Amy in the past few weeks. He strangely felt like it was an accomplishment.

He was about to fill his mug with steaming hot coffee that he needed to function properly when the sudden chills in his neck stopped him. His body reacting that way could only mean one thing.

“Jakey!”

_Charles._

“Hey, Charles. What’s up?” Jake turned around and greeted his longtime colleague and friend, Charles Boyle. He was the home economics teacher at the school. Charles loved cooking and all things homey, so the job was a perfect fit for him. He was over-enthusiastic and quirky and sometimes he could be a bit too much, but Jake would be lying if he said he didn’t care for the guy.

Not a lot of the other teachers at the school liked Jake - he wasn’t super old and stuck up or even that much of a stickler for the rules, and most of his colleagues didn’t even bother to hide their distaste for him. Charles, on the other hand, had never had a problem with him. Jake was grateful to at least have one person at work he could call a friend - even if he was slightly overbearing at times.

“Doing pretty good,” Charles smiled, as he went to pour coffee for himself. “Hey, I know it’s been like a week and I’m super late in asking this,” Charles started and turned to Jake, “but I was wondering how that date of yours went,” he said, as they walked over to one of the round tables in the corner of the room and set their drinks down.

“What date?” Jake asked, furrowing his brows.

“You know - the girl you met online. The one whose name you said you would definitely remember this time.”

“Oh. Right. Nina.” Jake scratched his neck awkwardly.

“Yeah. So, how did it go?” Charles asked, leaning forward.

“Um, pretty good. She was nice.” Jake took a large gulp of his coffee.

Charles looked at him like he was waiting for Jake to continue, but was only met with silence. “So you asked her out again, right?” Charles prompted.

Jake set down his coffee and twirled the mug with one hand while tapping the fingers of his free hand against the wooden surface of the table. “Not exactly, no,” he finally said.

Charles frowned. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Jake scratched his neck again, shifting in his seat. “There just wasn’t a… spark between us. You know?”

Charles looked at him sympathetically. “I get it buddy - when Genevieve and I met, there was just this instant feeling of, like, electricity between us. Like something magnetic was just pulling us together,” he said with a dreamy look on his face. “You’ll get that too, eventually,” he assured Jake. “In no time, you’re gonna find someone who’s gonna make you feel exactly like that. Just you wait.”

Jake smiled.

The problem was that he had already found that person, but he was just too damn stubborn to accept it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited this chapter so much and I'm still not sure if I'm completely happy with it, but I hope you guys liked it anyway!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please leave a comment and I hope you liked it!


End file.
